About Us

Our Story - Passion for Planting is a not-for-profit church planting support ministry started in 2002 by a group of church planters from New Life Christian Church in Centreville, Virginia.   New Life was started as a church planting church, and, through God's blessing, we have helped start many additional growing churches.  In 2002, our vision was to help start one new church every year and to be actively working with at least 4 church planters at any given time.   Through God's blessing, we've helped over 100 new churches.  Passion for Planting is an outgrowth of our local church experience and our passion to help start healthy new churches.  The following is a brief history behind this church planting support ministry:

• 1993 - New Life Christian Church was started by the Virginia Evangelical Fellowship (VEF).  Founding planter Brett Andrew's vision then and now is to pepper the Washington Metropolitan area (and beyond) with healthy growing churches.  New Life started in 1993 with 7 people, and, with God's blessing has grown to three campuses.
  
• 1997 - New Life helped start Forefront Christian Church in Virginia Beach (New Life sent two of its three staff members and some money).  Forefront has grown to over 700 people and is committed to starting new churches.
  
• 2001 - New Life became a multi-site church by starting a second campus in an adjacent county.  In response to rapid growth in Loudoun County Virginia (3rd fastest growing county in America in 2000), New Life started a second church campus to reach the large number of unchurched people moving into the area.
  
• In preparing to start our Dulles Campus, we took a process approach to developing a detailed launch plan.  We integrated all the actions into a schedule network with dependencies (e.g. bulk mail permit before card mailings, tax exempt status before bulk mail permit, federal identification number before tax exempt status, Articles of Incorporation before federal ID number, church name before Articles of Incorporation, etc.).  In taking this process approach, we were anticipating starting additional churches more frequently in the future and did not want to reinvent the wheel each time.  Over 90% of the resulting actions are applicable to any church plant.  We subsequently found that many church planters are in need of help with developing and managing launch plans (see Church Planting Solutions and Mobile Church Solutions for more information).
  
• In preparing to double our direct marketing mailings (postcards) with the start of our Dulles campus in early 2001, New Life conducted a detailed review of our marketing process and found significant potential for cost savings.  We were unnecessarily spending thousands of dollars per year.  Our problems were rooted in lack of understanding of the postal requirements and the basic process for direct mail.  Through an improved understanding of the postal requirements and the direct mail marketing process, New Life increased their mailings by over 50% for the same cost.
  
• Mid-2001 - In talking with other churches, we found that, like us, many other churches lacked the knowledge and experience to obtain the lowest possible prices when using direct mail marketing.  We found other churches making the same mistakes we had been making and wasting significant money.  New Life began receiving frequent requests to help other churches with their marketing.
  
• Late-2001 - New Life teamed up with another church to jointly design marketing cards and to print a single order that was larger than either church would print individually.  The resulting cost and time savings were remarkable.  Through this experience, we realized that significant cost savings are possible by pooling multiple print orders together at the same time (each church simply must print the same number of cards as the other churches and each church can use their own unique card designs).
  
• 2002 - The Church Marketing Institute (a non-profit marketing organization for churches) emerged in January 2002 from New Life's desire to share their first-hand experience in direct mail marketing and to help other churches get the best possible service and quality at the lowest possible price (ultimately to allow more unchurched people to be touched).  The Church Marketing Institute serves as an educational religious non-profit support ministry.
  
• 2002 - Through the Church Marketing Institute, we worked with over 20 church planters.  In most cases, church planters become consumed with the multitude of administrative details associated with starting a new church and are unable to spend the needed time on vision casting (communications), core group development and community outreach (the big 3Cs as we refer to them).  While serving these churches through our marketing ministry, we concluded that a far greater range of services was needed (e.g. equipment. launch plan management, etc.).  Based on this experience, the vision for Passion for Planting emerged.  In a nutshell, Passion for Planting exists to help keep church planters focused on the 3Cs.  The ministries under Passion for Planting target specific functions that are essential to effective church starts (e.g. marketing, equipment, launch plans, software, etc.), but can be done by people/organizations other than the church planter.
  
• Nov 2002 - Passion for Planting received 501c(3) tax exempt status.
  
• Jan 2003 - Passion for Planting enters into its first church planting partnership to offer its full services to a new church plant.  Our plan was to start slow, develop our processes, then expand.  Our first pilot during 2003 was a learning experience to define how we could best serve church planters.
  
• 2003 - Three new ministries were added to provide specific services for church planters.  These include Church Marketing Solutions (full-service marketing services for churches), Mobile Church Solutions (equipment services for new churches), and Church Planting Solutions (project management and launch plan management services).  Although these ministries function on a not-for-profit basis with any excess revenue going back into church planting, these ministries were legally formed as for-profit entities to allow fee for services.  Church Planting Solutions formed the core (niche) of our services so each of these three ministries are part of the same legal entity (Church Planting Solutions).
  
• 2004 - Expanded the number of pilot projects to eight including all Stadia Southeast church plants and one additional church plant. These pilots received our full services.  By the end of 2004, our pilot church plants were reaching over 1,500 people.
  
• Dec 2004 - NEW online launch plan management system developed based on the experience from our pilot church plants.  This lower cost desktop solution allows any new church to get many of the benefits of our full-service support.  Our full-support church plants in 2005 are using the new system.  The desktop version will be released in mid-2005.
  
• Dec 2004 - Through the end of Dec 2004, our Church Marketing Solutions ministry has helped hundreds of churches send over 15,000,000 direct mail invitations.  Price, quality, and service simply can't be beat anywhere!  Most of our customers tell us that we are saving them 30-50%. Our Church Planting Solutions ministry has helped over 100 new churches in some capacity.
  
• 2005 - Preparing to significantly increase the number of full-service projects that we can support.

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Purpose - Passion for Church Planting is a not-for-profit organization committed to helping churches reach their communities with the Good News of Jesus Christ.  We exist to:

• Help new churches develop startup plans (strategic planning for new churches)

• Help new churches find high-quality, low-cost services that maximize the effectiveness of their startup (cost savings for new churches)

• Provide advice and counsel to new churches during their startup (coaching  for new churches)

• Help educate new churches on best practices and trends in church planting (education for new churches)

• Provide financial assistance to new churches during their startup phase, primarily in the form of support services (e.g. marketing, planning, etc.)

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Values - Our values shape and guide how we do what we do and represent those things that are very important to us.  Passion for values the following:

Church Planting:  Church planting is the most effective way to reach the world.  Our profits will be returned to church planting and other Kingdom initiatives.
Service:  We exist to serve churches and church planting organizations.  We are not profit driven.  Instead, we are committed to ensuring that new Christian church plants get the most healthy and effective start possible.
Excellence:  Excellence involves giving our very best at everything we do.  Excellence honors God, attracts the unchurched, and encourages believers.  We are committed to excellence.
Demanding Standards and Expectations:  We will be more demanding of ourselves and each other than our customers are.
Creativity and Innovation:  We are committed to creativity and innovation as a bridge to a skeptical and demanding world.  We are willing to take risks and to fail, if necessary, in pursuing ever higher standards and levels of excellence.
Competency and Expertise:  We are committed to developing experienced staff and volunteers who are experts at what they do.  We value training and professional development.
Integrity:  We seek to do what is right, ethically and morally, in all circumstances.
Customer Value and Satisfaction:  We measure value in terms of providing churches and other non-profit organizations with what they want (quantity and quality), when they want it (schedule), at the lowest possible price (cost).  We are committed to delivering low cost, high quality, products and services.
Communications:  We are committed to listening to and seeking to understand our customers and to being professional, accurate, and clear in all communications.
Continuous Improvement and Process Management:  Process management is a means to improving how we do what we do, setting demanding standards for our staff and volunteers, training our people, and measuring our performance.  We are committed to continually improving how we do what we do through process management.

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Beliefs- We believe the following:

• God, the Creator of the world, is all powerful and all knowing.  God’s ways are perfect and He despises sin.
• Man is separated from God due to sin.  Without redemption from sin, man’s end is death.
• People matter to God.  His love for man is so deep that God initiated action to cover man’s sin and to make a way for man to be reconciled to Him.
• Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Head of the church, is the only way to God and to eternal life.   Jesus died for our sins, and rose from the dead so that man could be redeemed from his sinful nature and restored to a right relationship with God.
• Forgiveness of sins and eternal life are available to all who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  Those accepting Jesus Christ should repent of sin, confess their faith, and be baptized into Him.
• The Holy Spirit lives within and empowers every Christian.
• The Bible is the inspired word of God.
• The Church is the body of Christ on earth, empowered by the Holy Spirit to evangelize the lost and to edify the believer.

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